Black Book is one of the complex, emotionally wrenching and beautiful films of the decade. It is the story of a Dutch Jewish woman Rachel Stein [played by Carice Van Houten] during the final years of the Nazi regime. When her family is murdered right in front of her, the Dutch Resistance asks her to seduce Ludwig Mntze the head of the Dutch Gestapo in order to gain information. When Stein falls in love with Mntze she must learn to reconcile her love with this man who may have helped kill her family and meanwhile there is a spy in the resistance who has teamed with the Nazis to become war profiteers. Now American audiences may be surprised to learn that the film was co-written and directed by action auteur and Dutch native Paul Verhoeven best known for Robocop and Basic Instinct. But before Verhoeven made the sojourn to Hollywood he was best known for the thrillers Turkish Delight, Spetters and The Fourth Man. Black Book is very much a throwback to his previous films and I got a chance to talk with the man himself in New York City.

Daniel Robert Epstein: Ive seen most of your movies and I found this to be your most complex work, almost like a novel. Is that what you were going for?

Paul Verhoeven: Yeah, I think so but its very visual so its not very literary but it is certainly complex and has many layers. I think it has to do with the historical situation of that time. There were a lot of things going on at the same time and the last half-year of the war was extremely strange, especially in the city of The Hague where I was living. The film is situated in The Hague, which was also the center of the German government. There was an enormous amount of ambiguity at that time in all groups. The Germans themselves were already realizing they were losing the war. How would they protect themselves? How could they get out of the country? What could they take with them? Basically, how could they be satisfied although they lost the war. Then the Dutch population had been collaborating with the Germans. Many women had been sleeping with German soldiers. All that really came together in that last year in northern Holland because the southern part was already liberated in September 1944 but the northern part was liberated in May 45. So there was a half year in between where there was a lot of suffering in the northern part because there was no food. If you create a story set in that time it would be very strange if it were not complex. In fact, we chose that period because we loved the complexity. My scriptwriter [Gerard Soeteman] and I always felt that people under that kind of pressure are really living an existential life because every decision is extremely important. The worst and the best come out. It is a very illuminating period about what people are willing to do to each other to survive.

DRE: Some of your best known films are about women manipulating powerful men, what attracts you to that idea?

Paul: Who is she manipulating here?

DRE: Shes trying to manipulate Mntze.

Paul: Yeah, she is trying to seduce him but then she falls in love. She is not manipulating like the girls in Showgirls or Spetters, which is for profit. Shes not opportunistic, shes asked by the head of the Resistance, Mr. Kuipers, if she will sleep with Mntze. So she really does it for altruistic reasons. Kuipers son was arrested and he will be executed so he wants her to sleep with him so the Resistance can get information of how to get the son out of prison. She goes there clearly not out of opportunity, which is everything the main girls in Spetters or in Showgirls or even Sharon Stone [in Basic Instinct] is not.

DRE:Costa-Gavras did a movie called Amen about a German man that tries to tell the Vatican about what the Nazis are doing and Roman Polanski did The Pianist where a Nazi saves a Jew in hiding. Are movies like Black Book and these other films, filmmakers looking back for anything good in the Nazis?

Paul: No, this guy was okay. Mntze is based on a real person and he was exactly that person. He was negotiating with the Resistance to avoid bloodshed exactly like in the movie. He was really trying to make a deal with the Resistance because there were lots of Resistance fighters who would snipe and shoot at German officers mostly. Then at the command of Hitler, the Germans had to take political prisoners out of jail and execute them as reprisal. This was beginning to be a normal situation. So what the real Mntze was trying to do was negotiate with the Dutch Resistance so they would stop sniping at the German soldiers so the Germans would not retaliate anymore. Thats in the movie and thats the truth. I wasnt looking for good. Im certainly not well known for looking for good. I just found an interesting story.

DRE: I spoke to Takashi Miike a few years ago and I was surprised to find out that his favorite film is Starship Troopers.

Paul: Thats very nice. I always thought the movie was badly understood. There was an article in The Washington Post when it came out that was not written by a movie critic. One of the editors wrote it saying that this was a neo-Nazi movie and I was promoting Fascism. That same article was published in all the European newspapers. When I went to do the publicity tour in Europe, everybody was already looking through that lens. The Washington Post is not a reliable newspaper anyway but they said the film was written by a neo-Nazi or a Fascist and directed by one. I strongly disagree with that. I saw it as a critique of American society. It is done in an ironic way but not pushing it very hard, which I hate because then it becomes dogmatic and becomes something else other than filmmaking. It was more that the novel by Robert Heinlein is very militaristic and has a tendency to be pro-Fascist a bit. We took a lot of cues out of American society at that time, which was [President Bill] Clinton, not realizing that a couple years later this whole situation would be much more acute and now you can put the film as a blueprint over Iraq or Afghanistan. But of course, I didnt know of bin Laden at that time.

DRE: Are you still part of the Jesus Seminar?

Paul: Yes, Im going there tomorrow.

DRE: What do you think about James Cameron and finding this tomb?

Paul: A Dutch journalist called me this morning about that. He said, What do you think? I said, Did they do a statistical investigation because all of these names Mary, Jesus, whatever were so well known? Then I read this morning in USA Today that they did that and that the chances that it is a coincidence are 1 in 600. 600 is nothing, now if it were one chance in ten million, I would probably say, Well this might be true. But in this case 1 in 600 doesnt mean anything. I think ultimately its not a hoax. I think they are not aware of the fact that the name Mary was used by 25% of the female population. So I think its a wrong interpretation. Of course, that Jesus was buried in some way and did not walk out of his grave is true. He stayed and he died. According to a very famous theologian Dominic Crossan, he thinks that the body was thrown in a mass grave and eaten by the dogs. It says in one of the gospels, not one thats in the New Testament the one called Apocrypha in the Gospel of Philip, that Jesus often kissed Mary Magdalene on the lips. But that may be a result of some Christians feeling that there was a need to bring some sexuality into the Gospel or whatever. For me personally, I dont think that Jesus, at that time of his life, was really much into sex. He was very much into God.

Black Book is one of the complex, emotionally wrenching and beautiful films of the decade. It is the story of a Dutch Jewish woman Rachel Stein [played by Carice Van Houten] during the final years of the Nazi regime. When her family is murdered right in front of her, the Dutch Resistance asks her to...